Xi hails role of Confucius institutes

President Xi Jinping visits an exhibition during a Confucius event.[Photo/Xinhua]

Last year only about 2 percent of UK state-funded primary schools and 5 percent of state-funded secondary schools offered students the opportunity to learn Mandarin, according to a Treasury report.

The new funding will increase the quality and quantity of Mandarin teaching in schools, giving more young people a chance to study the language. Mandarin has been part of the British state school curriculum since 2014 under a UK government initiative.

"It was the first time that an Asian language has been included as an option in UK state schools' modern foreign language curriculum, joining French, Spanish, Italian and German," said Shen Yang, minister counselor at the Chinese embassy in London, adding that the inclusion recognizes the importance of China.

The Department of Education said that more than 1,200 teachers specializing in Mandarin would be trained to give students at state schools the same access as their counterparts in private schools, according to the same Daily Telegraph report.

It said the Institute of Education in London would be home to the biggest training center for Mandarin outside China — the Confucius Institute.

The Confucius Institutes are nonprofit public educational institutions affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education that promote Chinese language and culture worldwide, as well as training teachers of Chinese and supporting the teaching of the language internationally.

The Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, also known as Hanban, runs the institutes and reports directly to the Ministry of Education.

There are five Confucius Institutes in London focusing on elements of Chinese culture such as business, traditional Chinese medicine, dance and language.

The Confucius Institutes network also includes Northern Ireland. The institute at Ulster University was launched in 2012 as a partnership between Ulster University and Zhejiang University of Media and Communications in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Contact the writer at wujiao@chinadaily.com.cn